I’ve been told that the recently-established “No Hat, No Salute” area near my office has been cancelled. The explanation? “There is significant interest among the senior leaders on this base to reinvigorate our collective focus on good order and discipline.”
While I’ve not been entirely convinced that I was right in seeing the writing on the wall, I suspected there was something wrong with our military that went beyond my old codger mode of finding fault in the “kids these days.” And now, this. A whiff of admission from “senior leaders” that maybe we’ve lost our focus on good order and discipline. And no wonder. When most people on base don’t even have to wear a uniform on Fridays. When we’re about to see our second 4-day weekend in less than a month (with the upcoming 4th of July making it three in five weeks). When…well, I’ve covered this already, I’m sure.
I’ve started several pieces speaking to this all over the two years I’ve been writing here, and only ever published a few. It’s a delicate issue. I have friends and people I love and admire who serve in the military. And of course I served too. For 27 years, retiring 14 years ago. So yeah, I have insight. I have (old) credentials. I’ve also been able to sit back and watch things pretty closely. So when I’ve seen a disregard for things as basic as simple parking rules, I felt like I was seeing something beyond that that went even deeper. Things have gotten out of hand, and now some people are trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
Maybe they’ve had a wake-up call. Maybe they’ve realized the optics of it all. I mean, North Korea is launching missiles into the East Sea every other day, and all the while gearing up for their seventh nuclear test. But hey, let’s take another day off and have another party. Just how does that look?
If you ask me, it’s a bit disturbing, actually. And maybe someone, somewhere is finally waking up to that uncomfortable fact.
